10 Years Later

10 years ago I graduated from Uconn & set out a goal to run a marathon. I think it was a little bit of the holy shit what am I going to do with my life right now kind of thing?!?! Without one look back on my decision I ran the 2002 Greater Hartford Marathon (now ING Marathon) and accomplished my goal of finishing in just around 5 hours! My official time was 5:02:51, basically an 11:30 pace and I didn't walk once. In fact, I felt really good considering the conditions (pouring rain for 2 hours!). It is definitely one of my larger accomplishments in life at that time. It was also my very first race I had ever signed up for! That could be looked at as just plain stupid and after some training underway/talking to other runners I learned that even running one small race before the big marathon day would help me mentally. So that is what I did. I ran a 5K (totally happy I did) and then I continued to train diligently by following the Hal Higdon novice program I found online.

2 kids later and a bunch of small races, half marathons, and sprint triathlons later I feel the urge to put myself out there again to train for a marathon. I always said I wanted to do this distance again and 2012 looks like it will be my year! I am eyeing the Key City Bank Marathon in Burlington,VT. I absolutely love that city and I ran once there with a friend for 2 hours and didn't even realize how far we went because it was just a gorgeous place to run. The downtown area, bike path and Lake Champlain make for me a perfect running spot.

So now all I have to do is sign up. I have actually recruited a running partner to train with too which is AWESOME! Jeff is one of my best friends from home and we live an hour apart but we are going to try to run some long runs together when the mileage adds up in our training program and provide support to each other along the way. We decided to use the same running training schedule again, I figured the novice program worked the first time it should work just fine this go around too. The program is 18 weeks (which I don't have 18 weeks of time left) so I am starting on week 3 right now but I was pretty much running that mileage on the treadmill anyways at the gym in between the spin classes and some weight training during the week.

Now for many of you who know me this training will take me out of my shell when it comes to these winter months we still have up here in New England. I cringe at the running in the cold but I am going to start to work on breaking this pattern of staying indoors and running solely on the treadmill for the winter months. This weekend will be my first real test, I have a 6 miler I plan on doing outdoors and it will be a cold one but I need to get it done. I need to prove to myself that I can get over this and I too can be a year round outdoor runner if I want to be. Besides, I will still have my treadmill days, it looks like the week day runs will all have to be treadmill for a while for me. I have to get these in before work, I might be able to squeeze one run day in after work but I also have to wait for the days to get longer here so that there is daylight out!

So I have plenty of obstacles to work around to train effectively for this marathon but I think with determination and creativity I can do it. I will have to run on limited sleep at times (my children are horrible in this department), run when I don't want to if the weather conditions are not primo in my book, and also squeeze in runs on a treadmill that I would rather do outdoors. I work FT and juggle around Adam's demanding work schedule so sometimes I will have to juggle my running schedule I know but in order for me to see to the end of this goal I will just have to take it one run at a time!

There are two ways of looking at the situation. I could just say this isn't my time but then I could also say that years from now and find other excuses. I am just going to focus on what I can do to make it happen and keep my eye on the goal, it worked the first time and I know deep down inside my inner athlete wants to see if her post baby body can beat that 5 hour time I set out 10 years ago!